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Sunday, June 30, 2013

Hey Everyone,As I mentioned yesterday, I'd be posting some posts that I wrote a while ago, and I've had a hectic day today, so I figured it would be the perfect time to post one such post. I went off to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens today for the North Moreton Qld Orchid Council Inc. Show, and also to have a look around the gardens.... when will I learn that I never have enough space on the camera to take all the photos I want... oh well, more about that tomorrow :) on with the old post.

Courtesy of Ex-T.C. Oswald

HELLOOOOOO EVERYYYBODY!
How are you today? If you're in the Northern Hemisphere then I hope that your spring has sprung, if not, then continue to enjoy the cool, and if you're in the Southern Hemisphere with me, then I hope you're enjoying Autumn as much as I am.

Well, after a bit of confusion on behalf of the weather recently I hope it has finally made up it's mind to become Autumn.

This year we've had odd weather, with only 2 big storms throughout the whole of summer, where it was normally to get upwards of that weekly. We did get rain, and quite a bit of it during summer, but that's the thing, it was just rain. No WIZZ, BANG, CRASH, BOOM! Just the gentle pitter patter of rain... FOR DAYYYYYS on end.... well, we did get a few nice big wizz bang crashes, but only very few. I'll admit, I do love a good bit of rain, but it was starting to get pretty tedious. Well, onto our Autumnal weather. Down here in Oz our Autumn started on the 1st of March, but it's only been in the past week or two that it's starting to make itself felt. Last week we had two or three (I think) MASSIVE storms roll in. Oh it was glorious. See, when we have storms here in Brissie, it's normally very predictable, all day with not a cloud in the sky, then come roughly 3pm, and yee big beasty looms out of no-where. And that was the case last week. In Geography in the morning I'd watch 3-4 nice, big fluffy clouds forming near the city, however they weren't your typical clouds, these things were so tall, which to me indicated the pottential for a storm, and in Math in 6th Period I was not dissapointed. Around 2 in the afternoon yee beasty reared it's head. A massive front had formed and came rolling in off the ocean, and boy of boy did it make it's presence felt. The ambient temp dropped by about 10 degrees, and then the light show began. There was so much thunder and lightning it was as if it was making up for the lack of throughout summer. Then, after about 10 minutes of it going over us and plunging the whole area into a deep darkness the heavens opened. At first it was just a couple of drops of freezing water... but then they became solid and within no time the school looked as if it has been coated with a light dusting of snow. But boy of boy, if we thought the thunder was bad, the hail on all of the roofs was simply deafening. And just as the storm reached it's peak, with perfect timing, the bell rang, and it was time to go home. I've never seen the school so reluctant to leave the safety of it's classrooms.

"Yee big beasty"

Well, since that storm the temperature has become decisively Autumnal. The sun is rising later in the morning, so that I'm awaking to a bright, sparkly, dew soaked world that is glistening with morns first light, with crisp temperatures that make you breathe smoke, and in the afternoons I've started to wear long pants as I've been doing my daily gardening. The sun is setting earlier, and the bird song recently has been simply to die for. My darling Willy-Wagtails are back and keeping me company once more while I'm out gardening, I guess it's my version of the Robin, with their glorious raspy-chuff like noises, and their constant dancing it is a true pleasure to have them back. I've let the back paddock go wild with grasses over the summer, and they're all now going to seed and if you look at just the right time, when the sun is setting through the trees all of the seed heads light up in such a magical way it is just breathtaking. Of course the abundant bounty of seed and leaves have brought in the finches, and other little seed eating birds who're feeding on the seed heads causing them to sway in the last rays of light. And all of the insectivores have come in too, to prey on all of the delicious bugs and grubs that have made the paddock their home. I think that's why the Wagtails are back, and for that I'm glad.

I haven't been around much on the blog lately because school has been so busy, and when not trying to stop myself from losing my head I've been out in the garden trying to keep on top of things. And boy have I been busy. I've completely revanmped my Bromeliad Garden, added an "extension" of sorts to one of the shade houses, with more planned, whilst also pulling out phenomenal ammounts of Potato Vine, and I've been trying to redo a small secluded area of the garden that has been neglected for the past few years. I'm going to redo it in such a way that it'll be a nice place to split the wood for the fire, and somewhere that I can dissapear to, to do a spot of pottering :D. I'm going to do a winding path surrounded by a cottage-garden-esk beds, with a windy little path through some little sapplings that we have nearby and hopefully I'll be able to make it reminiscent to a forest.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my ramblings from a few months back, and hopefully I can yabber on at you again tomorrow, but for nowHappy Gardening,Michael

Friday, June 28, 2013

Oncidium Twinkle A photo from last years show, that I'm going to tomorrow

Hey Everyone,
Yeah, same old story, haven't been around for ages.... miss blogging so much... all schools fault for giving us assessment, and no doubt I should promise to blog more often..... buuuuut, we all know how truthful that's been in the past.... and a bit more yadee yadee yuduh....

Well, anyways, I'm finally on holidays again, I acctually have been for the past week, but I've been flat out with getting the garden back under control, and attempting to get my social life back in tact... or at least I think that's what I'm meant to be doing ☺. During the days I've been pulling weeds, I built a shade house specially for my carnivores, particularly my Nepenthes, and Drosera, and I did that on the afternoon after my last exam, since then I decided to go the whole hog, and I've connected up all of my shadehouses into a nice big area that I can fill with shade loving plants ☺..... I mainly did it because my Dendrobium speciosum are coming into flower, and where I had put them for the summer was WAY too tiny for them to flower in (they have 1.5 metre long flower spikes, which adds a 3m spread to their already existing ginormous-ness). Oh, and I finally tracked down some suitable sand so that I could repot my Drosera and Sarracenia, which is really cool. I cleaned them up, repotted and even had a go at doing a bit of dividing... fingers crossed it works.

And of course I've become a father again... well, kinda. We've had some chickens hatch again, and they are absolutely adorable! I just love them. I'm also baby sitting my neighbours pets this weekend... you know, the usual.... Fish, Mice, Chooks, Geese, Alpacas and a Bearded Dragon. I LOVE IT! Also, here's a fun fact, geese bury their eggs... or at least these ones do, I went in to collect the eggs this morning and accidentally stood on a good egg that was buried in the straw, I was devastated, but I saw there was another one laid tonight, so I must remember not to stand on it.

I captured the rain on one of my Philodendrons in the brom garden this week, quite nice

Well, I'm sure I've done a lot more interesting things, but I can't think of them at the moment, or else I'll just save a blog post specially for them.

I had my orchid society meeting last night, which was brilliant as per usual, and then I'm off to a show at the botanic gardens, so there'll be photos from there as well. I also wrote some posts a while back, so I'll publish them as well in the coming week. But for now, I think I'd best wrap it up, show some photos, and toddle off to bed ☺

Happy Gardening,
Michael

Dogs bane, in School's Environmental Group's garden

Tolumnia Capalaba Sun (A friend of mine in my Orchid Society has thankfully registered this plant, and it's parents, because the tag used to be HUGE before he registered the names... I do love my friends)